Thursday, May 12
2:30 p.m. Theoretical Physics Seminar - Curia II
Speaker: K. Benson, Emory University
Title: Constructing Braneworld Field Theories
3:30 p.m. DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4:00 p.m. Accelerator Physics and Technology Seminar - 1 West
Speaker: J. Branlard, Illinois Institute of Technology
Title: Small-Signal Analysis of High Frequency
Semiconductor Devices
Friday, May 13
3:30pm DIRECTOR'S COFFEE BREAK - 2nd Flr X-Over
4:00pm
Joint Experimental Theoretical Physics Seminar
1 West
Speaker: G. Veramendi, University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign
Title: High Mass Phenomena at CDF
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Thursday, May 1
Tomato Florentine$1.90
Grilled Chicken CordonBleu Sandwich $4.75
Chimichangas $3.75
Chickan Marsala $3.75
Maryland Crab Salad $4.75
Italian Sausage Calzones $3.25
Southwest Chicken Salad with Roasted Corn Salsa $4.75
The Wilson Hall Cafe now accepts Visa, Master Card, Discover and
American Express at Cash Register #1.
Wilson Hall Cafe Menu
Chez Leon
is now open. Call x4512 to make your
reservation.
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John Carson, Magnate Of
Magnets, Retires May 12
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John Carson stands in front of a skin welding press. (Click on image for larger version.)
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Technical Division's John Carson has worked at Fermilab for nearly 32 years and
will retire this Thursday, May 12. Carson, along with others in the division,
is responsible for every dipole and quadrupole magnet in the Tevatron and the
magnets in the Main Injector. He also helped to build the prototype magnets
and tooling equipment for the now-defunct Superconducting Supercollider and the
Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Asked to pose for a picture next to a machine he
helped to build or design at TD, Carson responded: "Well, I guess I could stand
next to just about anything here."
Carson's favorite part of working at the lab was the mental effort, "the challenge
of doing things that had never been done before." He plans to retire
to a place on Loon Lake north of Fermilab, where he will fish, boat, garden, and
spend time with his five grandchildren. A native of Chicago, Carson and his wife
Maria have been married nearly 40 years, and have three children.
Carson will miss the people at the lab the most. "The people are such a diverse
cross-section of technicians and engineers, cultures and experiences," he said.
"Coming to Fermilab was the best thing I could have done." But Carson shouldn't
get too comfortable, joked the head of TD, Bob Kephart. "We will be calling him
at some point with magnet questions," said Kephart.
--Eric Bland
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From Purchase Requisitions to Hiring Employees, Joy Thomas
Retires After 36 Years
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Joy Thomas (right) accepts her 35 year service award from Director
Mike Witherell in December 2004. (Click on image for larger version.)
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When Lab Services' Joy Thomas started working at the lab as a clerk typist in 1969,
she had the rare opportunity of witnessing the lab under construction. "We would
walk over to Wilson Hall during our lunch break to see the progress on the construction,"
Thomas said. "Eventually we could see the building from the village." And now after 36
years of watching the lab grow and evolve, Thomas retires tomorrow on May 13.
Thomas spent her first ten and a half years at Fermilab working in Purchasing (now Procurement).
"We typed all of the purchase requisitions for the lab, and there were many to do because
they were buying everything for the lab at the time," she said. Thomas recalls typing an
average of 100 to 150 purchase requisitions a day on a large key punch machine. "The machines
were very noisy, so they put us in our own house in the Village," she said. "We sat in a big
living room typing away, so I always thought of Fermilab as my home away from home because
it was very cozy."
For the past twelve years, Thomas has been a Recruiter in the Employment Office. From
initially typing purchase requisitions to more recently hiring employees, Thomas really
helped build the lab. "Joy has touched the lives of everyone at the lab," said Employment
Manager Tom McMahon. "It is going to be hard to come into the department and not have
her smiling face around. She will be greatly missed."
Thomas' first goal for retirement is to not be on a schedule. "I just want to get up
and do whatever I want to do on that day," she said. With her husband still working
and her only daughter recently married, Thomas is looking forward to having time to
herself before grandkids eventually come along. She also hopes to travel and visit
her two sisters who are out of state. But one of the first things that Thomas plans
to celebrate with her husband is their 35th anniversary this June. "We have a lot of
milestones this year," she said.
Elizabeth Clements
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Bob Huite's Plans Include
Teaching and Volunteering
After 18 years of work at Fermilab, Business Services' Bob Huite will
retire tomorrow, May 13. Huite had two stints at Fermilab, one in
1984-1985, after which he worked at the Scott Air Force Base in southern
Illinois, and then again from 1988 until his retirement. As a Senior
Procurement Administrator, Huite worked on several major purchasing
projects, such as the NuMI Tunnels and Halls/Outfitting Contract, the
Utility Incentive Program/Energy Saving Performance Contract, and the
Cafeteria Food Service Contract, and helped to set up the Fermilab credit
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Bob Huite
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card program. Huite, the self-proclaimed "Jack-of-all-procurement areas,"
took advantage of Fermilab's Tuition program and obtained his BA from Park
University and his MBA from Aurora University.
His favorite aspect of the job was the variety. "I enjoyed working with a
wide range of people, from physicists to engineers, staff to visitors, and
the DOE office" said Huite. "You will always miss the pleasant environment
and you miss the people." Huite will take some time off before moving back
to southern Illinois with his wife, Judy, who retired on May 2. Once he is
settled there, Huite plans to teach procurement/business classes at one of
the local community colleges, volunteer with the Scott Air Force Base Retiree
Activities Office and veterans organizations, and catch up with his favorite
authors: John Grisham, Dan Brown, Patrick Davis and many others. The Huites
will soon travel to Svendborg, Denmark, where they were married almost 25
years ago.
--Eric Bland
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From The Washington Post, May 8, 2005
Einstein for Dummies
When we want to indicate that someone is a little dimwitted, we say, "He's no Einstein."
But there were some moments when even Albert Einstein was no Einstein. He struggled
for the last 30 years of his life searching for a Theory of Everything and barking up a
lot of strange trees. Any day now someone will probably publish a book with a title
like Einstein: The Dumb Years.
read more
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Beam Me Up, Scotty!
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Result of the DZero search for Randall-Sundrum gravitons.
Shown with blue markers are the data corresponding to the dielectrons or diphotons
(left) or dimuons (right) produced in proton-antiproton collisions.
Shown with a red line is the predicted spectrum, which agrees well with
the observation. Shown with a black line is a simulated peak due to an
excited graviton. The apparent lack of an excess in the data yeilds
stringent limits on Randall-Sundrum model parameters. (Click on image
for larger version.) |
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In the past few years physicists have been striving to find
extra dimensions in space - the idea originated in the 1920s,
but more recently has been popularized by string theorists.
In the past physicists looked for extra dimensions that had a
similar geometry, or metric, to the ones we are used to.
In our world, if one takes a meter stick, its length remains
the same, no matter where in space it is placed. However, in
a recent paper (hep-ex/0505018, submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett.)
the DZero Collaboration has broken new ground and searched for
an extra dimension that comes straight from the Star Trek! This
spatial dimension has a special "warp factor," which results in
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M.C. Escher's "Circle
Limit IV: Heaven and
Hell" drawing that
illustrates the geometry
of anti-deSitter space.
The curvature of space
changes, as one moves
outside the circle along
its radius. Thus angels
and demons, which all
would have the same
size in our, Eucledian,
space, become smaller
and smaller in the
anti-deSitter space.
(Image Courtesy M.C.
Escher Foundation |
the length of a meter stick depending on where it is in space.
Such geometry is known as "anti-deSitter space", after Dutch
astronomer Willem deSitter, who has first proposed it in his
work on general relativity. Due to this warp, the relative
strengths of interactions depend on where in space they are
"generated."
A few years ago, Lisa Randall and Raman Sundrum
proposed solving the infamous hierarchy of forces problem
(why is gravity so much weaker than other forces?) via the
warping of anti-deSitter space. One of the predictions of
their model is the production of excited states of the gravitational
quantum - the graviton - in particle collisions at high energies.
DZero physicists have searched for decays of excited gravitons
into pairs of electrons, muons, or photons. So far, no evidence
for graviton production has been found and the first experimental
limits have been set on the Randall-Sundrum model parameters.
However, this is just the beginning. DZero hopes to increase the
amount of data by a factor of 10 in the near future, thus enhancing
the sensitivity of the search significantly.
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Greeting you from warped space: (Top row, left to right) Ryan Hooper, Greg Landsberg (Brown University),
and Emmanuelle Perez (Saclay) are the primary authors of the paper. (Bottom row, left to right)
Yurii Maravin (Fermilab) and Jan Stark (Grenoble)
contributed to the electron and photon identification, as well as
calorimeter calibration.
(Click on image for larger version.) |
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Result of the Week Archive
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Retired
- Joseph Lazarra, AD, 5/12/05
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Annual NALWO Spring Tea
The annual NALWO spring tea will be held at the Director's house on May 12
from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. All women associated with Fermilab are invited.
more information
Fermilab Arts Series Announces 2005 Summer Season
This summer, the Fermilab Arts Series takes a world tour as they present
music
and dance from Mexico, Cuba, India, Ireland, Ukraine and back home again to
the U.S. The season begins with the folkloric sounds of Mexico and Cuba as
performed by Cascada de Flores, a folkloric quartet that brings beautiful
vocals, guitar, and a plethora of musical instruments, some familiar and
some new. Singer/songwriter Tom Paxton has been a fixture of the folk music
scene since the 60's in Greenwich Village. He will be joined by the witty
singer/songwriter, Cheryl Wheeler. Tickets are on sale
for these and all the other 2005/2006 Arts Series events by calling
630/840.ARTS weekdays from 9 - 4, closed for lunch.
more information
Retirement Party for Rap and Joanie
Join us at the Users' Center on Friday, May 20
at 5:00 p.m. Please bring a dish to pass! Call Lisa
Carrigan, X3185, P1143, or lcarrigan@fnal.gov
with any questions. Rap's last full day at the lab will be Thursday, May 12.
more information
Summer Coed "Fun" Volleyball League
The new league representative for the summer volleyball league is Jenny
Thorson. League play will begin May 24 at the sand volleyball courts
located behind the swimming pool in the village. There will be a league
meeting for captains or team representatives on May 16 at Noon in the
Atrium. New league rules will be discussed so it is important that someone
from your team attend. Games are played on Monday and Tuesday evenings.
If you are interested in getting on a team or you have a team that would
like to participate contact Jenny Thorson at
jthorson@fnal.gov or x 3470.
Rosters for teams must be turned in to Jenny by May 20.
Upcoming Activities
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